A huge greenhouse growing cannabis for medicinal use could be built in Wiltshire within two years by a company aiming to dominate a marketplace opened by a Government decision to allow prescribed use of the drug.
Sativa Investments has already started testing growth conditions ahead of the construction of the £10m farm which will need the same amount of power as required by a town the size of Frome.
Its location will be on a 4,500-acre farm between Warminster and Salisbury.
Alongside the plan, sister company George Botanicals today reported a major growth in the production and sale of legal cannabis oil-based products - oils, balms and capsules - from the two companies’ headquarters in Beckington, near Frome.
Taken from a variety of cannabis plant called industrial hemp - Cannabis Sativa L – the products contain less than 0.2 per cent of the mind-altering chemical called Tetrahydrocannabino (THC) which cannabis is best known for.
At the 300,000 sq ft greenhouse, the cannabis plants grown would have higher levels of THC, but would only be used for medicinal use and given out only on a prescription in the wake of Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s move to legalise it in November.
The legislation followed the high-profile case of mother Charlotte Caldwell being refused cannabis oil for her epileptic son Billy last year.
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Geremy Thomas, chief executive of Sativa Investments, said: “In the 1970s the Nixon government made cannabis public enemy number one; that political decision held back much research into the positive side of cannabis, and only now are we seeing the medicinal benefits of it.
“As a country we have come to the discussion very late. We are a conservative country but I believe it will come and eventually we will have the biggest market for medicinal cannabis.”
He added: “The door has been opened for medicinal cannabis, but only just. Over time it will be used more and more.”
The company has received planning permission to build the greenhouse as well as approval from the Home Office.
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But right now is not the time to start build on the 18-month construction project, said Mr Thomas, who will want its produce to match the expected rise in demand for medicinal cannabis.
Despite this, testing of growth conditions for the medicinal cannabis is being done on tomato plants by another sister company called PhytoVista Laboratories. And last week it was announced the group was teaming up with Kings College London for further research into the medical benefits of cannabis.
All the while, George Botanicals, led by Mr Thomas’s 29-year-old son George, is making and selling a line of 17 products based on a substance called cannabidiol (CBD) at the group’s 200-acre farm in Beckington.
CBD comes to the farm in the form of liquid extract or powder from hemp grown in eastern Europe.
But he has plans to grow and use his own hemp having trial-grown 10 acres of the plant. He is waiting on an application for an extraction licence from the Home Office before he can pick them
“It will mean we will be able to source exactly where our products have come from and enable us to gain more control as a business and give the seed-to-consumer strategy we are longing for,” he said.
The products are classified by the UK Government as a food supplement and so the company is unable to advertise them for well-being benefits, although research has found it helps people with sleeping problems, anxiety and pain management. It is also used by athletes.
That classification could soon change, however, following talks between the industry and the Food Standards Agency.
George said: “We want better classification of the product to improve understanding and regulation of the industry. It is a huge market which is only going to get bigger which we believe we are at the forefront of.”
Another sister company has been set up by the group – Goodbody & Blunt – which will create three shops in the West Country selling legal CBD-based products.
There is potential is to turn the outlet into a franchise with shops opening across the country, said George.
